Cochon 555

10 Hour Pork Should with Cracklings from Mozza

What is Cochon 555?

Cochon –French for Pig.
5 Chefs, 5 Pigs and 5 Winemakers

The event founded by Brady Lowe is on a mission.

Their Mission: Cochon 555 is a one-of-a-kind traveling culinary competition and tasting event–five chefs, five pigs, five wine makers–to promote sustainable farming of heritage breed pigs. Each stop along the ten-city tour offers hard-working local farmers the opportunity to connect with like-minded agriculturalists, renowned chefs and the pork-loving public. Our goal is to help family farms sustain and expand their businesses and to encourage breed diversity. Cochon 555 is the only heritage breed pig culinary competition in the country.

The event was held last night in Downtown Los Angeles at Vibiana’s which used to be the Cathedral of Los Angeles. This is an old church that has been stripped of all of its religious symbols and served as an appropriate setting for Swinetologists to gather and celebrate the creations of 5 of the best chefs in the city.

This is an amazing event. Each chef gets a 175 pound heritage breed pig and they have to prepare it from head to toe with dishes to wow the judges and guests. The winning chef receives an invitation to the finals held at the Aspen Food and Wine Festival.

The food just didn’t stop coming. Trying to keep up with the numerous choices was overwhelming. And just when you think it’s over they roll out two milk fed pigs that have been smoked for 12 hours for what they call the family meal. Shortly thereafter they bring out trays a light and crispy fried pork skin with a dark chocolate sauce for dipping. Pure decadence.

The winner for the Los Angeles stop was Chad Colby from Mozza who prepared an incredible Italian inspired menu.

[...] pastured and organic meat. I first became acquainted with them when I saw their name on the Cochon 555 website and then later running around the event helping out with the butcher competition and serving [...]